


Theories of Divination

by wisdomeagle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Fortune Telling, Gen, Giles Gen Ficathon, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Original Character(s), Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-06
Updated: 2005-05-06
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4703786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles doesn't believe in fortune-tellers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Theories of Divination

**Author's Note:**

  * For [malnpudl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/malnpudl/gifts).



A lanky young man hangs over the top railing in the library and shouts down, "Hey, mate, got anything on seeing the future?"

Giles takes a deep breath, marches up the stairs angrily, and gives the lad a stern look that he hopes conveys his feelings about people who shout in libraries as well as people who ask inane questions.

"Why don't you try the section on soothsaying?" he asks, and coughs for good measure.

"Where's that at?"

Giles sighs and points the young man in the direction of Gordal's Seers and the classic Companion to Visions and Visionaries. "They won't be useful, you know."

"What do you mean?" The boy -- not a man, not even a young one, after all -- puffs out his chest and glares.

"You can't see into the future unless you have the gift," he says, "and even then, interpretation is the difficult bit. People train for decades in prophecy interpretation, and still get them wrong when they ought to know better."

The boy, disappointed, stuffs his hands into his pockets and tries to look as if he has something else to do. Giles, his work done, retreats back to the reference room, where he's working at a particularly tricky text in an obscure dialect of ancient Greek. Thus far, he's determined it's a prophecy about the end of all things, but since that's true of half the texts the Museum houses, it's not much to go on.

Divination is one of the least precise sciences, because it relates the future, always a fickle epoch, and because it is, at least at this date, unteachable. This bothers the Council, for obvious reasons; anything they can't teach, preferably through the judicious application of large textbooks, is inherently suspect. The fact that their own Slayers are noted for their precognitive dreams is just one of the many problematic things about the girls they've sworn to protect.

Giles, who keeps many secrets, (even from the advisory committee members, despite his oath to tell them the complete truth about his adventures in the streets of London,) once experienced what he can only conclude was a vision, but the details are as hazy as pot-memories and not nearly as fun. He remembers that the white wave broke on the shore after St. Valentines' Day and that there is no spell, but there is no understanding any of it.

"Hey, mate." It's his young friend from upstairs.

"What do you want now?"

"I was wondering if you had any suggestions."

"On _what_?"

"Learning to see into the future."

Giles, angry, stands up and tells him, "There is no way. Second sight is a gift. At least, it's innate. As a gift, it's of questionable value."

"Like this library." The boy shrugs. "I'd say it's of questionable value, if you claim to be experts in supernatural and occult but can't see into the future."

"Why do you want to see your future? Most boys your age would rather leave it alone."

The boy shuffles his feet. "Worried," he says with a shrug. "Not sure me mum's going to make it. Wanted to make sure."

Giles suppresses a smirk. "I see. And is this poor mother of yours suffering from cancer? Weak heart? Perhaps she's been dead a fortnight and you want to know if she's going to rise again? Or maybe she's just sick with worry because her youngest son is loose in London?"

"Middle son," the boy corrects, indignant.

"Next time, think of a more convincing lie," Giles tells him.

After the boy leaves, he retrieves a volume from his own collection on the divers visions of mystics, prophets, madman, and Slayers. Paging through, he discovers the book's former owner has written the address of a seedy area soothsayer on a bookmark. "Madam Chatterley." Might as well read "Madam Charlatan," he thinks, but in his curiosity, using the same part of his brain that started him down the road to darkness ten years ago, he decides to pay her a visit.

The waiting room is atmospheric, incense and ancient tabloids with pictures of the princesses cut out, presumably for someone's amateur scrapbook or voodoo project; in a place like this, odds are about even. An odd scent that isn't any herb he recognizes permeates the upholstered couches.

"Rupert Giles?" He gets to his feet slowly, careful not to seem too gullible or too skeptical. "Madam will see you now."

As he enters the back room, a familiar-looking boy is leaving -- the boy from the library. He tries to think of something appropriate to say, but the only thing that occurs to him is, "What did she tell you?"

"She babbled something about fish and monks."

"Typical," Giles tells him. "You shouldn't expect anything else."

"What are you doing here, then?"

Giles obviously doesn't have an answer to that one, so he brushes past the innocent and finds himself face to face with Madam Chatterley.

She is crisp and businesslike, barks "crystal ball, palm, tea, or cards?" as she gestures impatiently for him to take his seat.

"Which is least inaccurate? Have you had the crystal ball registered? Have you got your copy of the Seers' Contract nearby?" He's slipped into Official Council Business mode without intending to.

"In that case, take the tea," she tells him. "Then at least you won't entirely be wasting your money."

"Right. Tea it is."

"Why _are_ you here? I heard you tell Quint he shouldn't expect truth."

"I didn't say that," Giles hedges. "I said he shouldn't expect coherence. When you read prophecies for a living, you know that the future is never unambiguous."

"Fair enough." She pours him a cup of tea; it's lukewarm and stronger than he prefers. He gulps it down and hands her the cup quickly.

"My, we don't stand on niceties, do we?"

"This is a business transaction," he says, "and I'm almost positive you're a fraud. Why should I stand on niceties?"

"Rituals. They're important."

"You can See just as easily without them -- if you can See at all."

"Didn't say they were necessary. But they are important. All right, ready for your reading?"

"Should I brace myself? Perhaps sit down even further?"

"Well, you aren't going to die in a boating accident," she tells him, and he can't help laughing a bit. "Nor in South America -- although someone you love will. San Paulo. I see vampires --"

"Not a surprise. I'm a Watcher."

"All right, fine. Then I should probably skip over the demons and forces of darkness as well, shall I? I see... a book, a cross -- those'll be the tools of the trade -- a key and a monk."

"All that in my tea?"

"Not all in the tea," she says, and Giles notices a quiver in her lip. "Any clue what the monk might mean? I've been seeing him everywhere. I don't think he belonged in poor Quint's future at all."

"Monks aren't exactly in my line of work," Giles tells her. 

"Well. Then. You'll pay my girl?"

"Of course." He is inspired to gentleness; he recalls that true seers rarely prophesy without pain.

"The key is important," she tells him as he gathers his jacket. "The key and the monk. Forget the rest."

"Not important?"

"How should I know what's important? I'm just a seer who runs a sham soothsaying business."

"And I'm just a Watcher who hasn't got a Slayer. Good night."

As he ducks into the grimy street and the cool fog, he can't help wondering what monks and Brazil have to do with his probable future as a curator of the British Museum. A fraud. She's nothing but a fraud.

**Author's Note:**

> Malnpudl requested "indignant" "a key," any time so long as Giles was over 30, and no vamp!Giles or Ripper.


End file.
